A German museum has traced the author of a 101-year-old message in a bottle.

A fisherman pulled the beer bottle out of the Baltic Sea near Kiel, Germany, last month, according to Holger von Neuhoff of the International Maritime Museum, Agence France-Pressereports.

Inside the bottle is a postcard dated May 17, 1913, but much of the writing on the postcard is illegible, von Neuhoff told AFP.

Based on the address, researchers were able to identify the author of the message as Richard Platz, the then 20-year-old son of a baker. Platz died in 1946, but a genealogist was able to locate his 62-year-old granddaughter, Angela Erdmann, in Berlin, according to the report.

Erdmann was given the chance to hold the bottle at the museum last week, where the postcard will be on display.

Previously, the oldest message found in a bottle spent nearly 98 years at sea and was discovered in April 2012, according to Guinness World Records.